


Coda to Touch

by keep_waking_up



Series: Wincest Daemon AU [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 02:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6834625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keep_waking_up/pseuds/keep_waking_up





	Coda to Touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pennydrdful](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennydrdful/gifts).



There are these books for kids, Daemon Books, jam-packed full of animals. They're supposed to teach how to identify others' daemons or even your own, when it settles. Dean's dad had never bought him one, but Dean has one stowed in the trunk of the Impala anyway. He'd seen it sitting dusty and abandoned in the back of a bookstore not long after Sam had left, and he'd shoved it under his jacket and taken it.

He doesn't look at it much. It's about as fun to look at as a knife point inches from his eyes, so he only goes near it when he's had a few drinks and he thinks he can stomach it. Or when he's had more than a few drinks and the pain of it is better than the cracked nothingness in his chest.

He looks at each animal carefully, marks them when he's done. He's seen Aesina in some of their guises, can't even imagine her in others. He talks out loud to Cela while he works, although she's quieter than ever with Sam gone. Sometimes he goads her: "Marmot," he proclaims loudly, drunkenly, and she glares at him with her dark, mahogany eyes. Most of the time he can't even bear to tease, though. Because how could he know, really? He had known Sam, at one point, but he'd given that up. His Sam, the Sam whose daemon he'd cradled so regularly in his arms, could be gone for good.

One night, when he's so maudlin that Cela has deigned to lay her head in his lap, she says softly, "We could go and see." The words hover between them, live in the air. "Aesina must have settled by now. We could go, just to check. Just to know."

Dean looks down at her, her mottled coat and wilted ears, and knows it won't just be to check. If he sees Sam--if Cela sees Aesina--he'll forget all the good and real reasons why he'd pushed Sam away. He'll be drawn to the stubborn line of Sam's jaw with the desire to soften it the way only he can. His hands will ache to wrap around the back of Sam's neck and smooth through his hair. He'll offer Cela to Sam all over again and beg for the chance to even brush against Aesina.

"No," he tells Cela as he closes the book. "We can't."

When they check out the next day, the book is left in the motel trashcan.


End file.
